<p>tk21769:</p>
<p>GPAs are malleable. Each school district in California can make up its own rule regarding how they calculate, weigh and report GPA and corresponding class rank.</p>
<p>Take the case of two contiguous school district, each with high performing public schools. In one, every Honors semester course grade is A= 4.5, B= 3.5, C = 2.5 and so on. For each AP semester course, the grade A = 5.0, B= 4.0, C= 3.0 and so on. The neighboring school is far more grudging and flat. Every CP, Honors and AP course has A = 4.0, B= 3.0, C = 2.0. They make one minor adjustment they make is they add on a 0.01 to every Honors semester GPA, so an Honors A = 4.01 (not 4.5 like in School 1) and for AP they add 0.02, so an AP A = 4.02 (not 5.0 like School 1). Big difference between the two schools already.</p>
<p>Now, take two straight A students from these two schools. Say each has ten semester courses in junior year. Schools 1 kid reports junior GPA as 5.0 (assuming all AP classes) while kid from School 2 reports GPA as 4.2 (4.0 average GPA + 0.02 added GPA (times) 10 AP semester courses). BIG DIFFERENCE in reported GPA based on comparable performance between 2 students taking all AP classes in two neighboring school districts.</p>
<p>AP classes are easy to understand, because ultimately there is a public AP exam which gives Colleges an ability to assess scores. But these are self-reported and we are left with the school transcript. And while in the above example, comparison may be easy , that is not always the case.</p>
<p>Let’s go back to School 1. Student at school 1 takes all school-designated Honors classes (which are not the same as the higher level AP classes) – gets all As and ends up with a 4.5 average GPA. Very inpressive. Student at school 2 takes 6 AP semester classes and 4 Honors classes, gets As in all and ends up with an average of 4.16. Student at School 2 took demonstrably “harder” classes and ends up with a 4.16 vs the School 1 student with a 4.5 GPA. Both students are utterly honest in reporting their GPA but they are truly apples and oranges.</p>
<p>IMPLICATIONS? Admissions Officers have their work cut out trying to determine how to evaluate transcripts from different schools/districts each with their own “weighting system” or lack thereof. Even though they have plenty of practice, it is hard not to be seduced by a student from School 1 in a straight choice with a student from School 2, all other things being equal.</p>
<p>That is why it is so difficult to interpret the mid-50 percent GPA range. Is that some standardized GPA (normalized by say Middlebury or Harvard) or is it simply the mathematical average of all the apples, peaches and tangerines reported by students’ schools.</p>
<p>Food for thought…</p>
<p>Edit: I’m unsure if this subject doesn’t belong in some other Forum, and not here…</p>